NOACH

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NOACH

October 10, 2018 Daniel Pels

A Drama in Four Acts

The parsha of Noach brings to a close the eleven chapters that precede the call to Abraham and the beginning of the special relationship between him and his descendants, and God. During these eleven chapters, the Torah gives prominence to four stories: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the generation of the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. Each of these stories involves an interaction between God and humanity. Each represents another step in the maturation of humanity. If we trace the course of these stories, we can discover a connection that goes deeper than chronology, a developmental line in the narrative of the evolution of humanity. Continue reading NOACH

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BERESHIT

October 4, 2018 Daniel Pels

The Three Stages Of Creation

“And God said, let there be… And there was… and God saw that it was good.”
Thus unfolds the most revolutionary as well as the most influential account of creation in the history of the human spirit. In Rashi’s commentary, he quotes Rabbi Isaac who questioned why the Torah should start with the story of creation at all.[1] Given that it is a book of law – the commandments that bind the children of Israel as a nation – it should have started with the first law given to the Israelites, which does not appear until the twelfth chapter of Exodus. Continue reading BERESHIT

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VEZOT HABERACHÁ

September 26, 2018 Daniel Pels

Unfinished Symphony

Each year, as we near the end of the Mosaic books and Moses’ life, I find myself asking: Did it really have to end that way, with Moses denied the chance to even to set foot on the land to which he led the people for forty tempestuous years? In the Heavenly Court, could Justice not have yielded to Mercy for the few days it would have taken Moses to cross the Jordan and see his task fulfilled? And for what was Moses being punished? One moment’s anger when he spoke intemperately to the Israelites when they were complaining about the lack of water? Can a leader not be forgiven for one lapse in forty years? In the words of the sages: Is this the Torah and this its reward?[1] Continue reading VEZOT HABERACHÁ

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HAAZINU

September 20, 2018 Daniel Pels

Emotional Intelligence

In March 2015 I had a public conversation at Yale with the University’s President Peter Salovey. The occasion was quite an emotional one. It celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the Marshall Scholarships, created by the British parliament as a way of expressing thanks to the United States for the Marshall Plan, that helped Western Europe rebuild its economies after the Second World War. Continue reading HAAZINU

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VAYELECH

September 13, 2018 Daniel Pels

The Second Mountain

What do you do when you have achieved it all, when you have risen to whatever career heights fate or providence has in store for you? What do you do as age lengthens its shadow, the sun sinks, and the body is no longer as resilient or the mind as sharp as it once was? Continue reading VAYELECH

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NITZAVIM

September 4, 2018 Daniel Pels

The World is Waiting for You

Something remarkable happens in this week’s parsha, almost without our noticing it, that changed the very terms of Jewish existence, and has life-changing implications for all of us. Moses renewed the covenant. This may not sound dramatic, but it was. Continue reading NITZAVIM

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KI TAVÔ

August 29, 2018 Daniel Pels

The Story We Tell

The setting: Jerusalem some twenty centuries ago.  The occasion: bringing first fruits to the Temple. Here is the scene as the Mishnah describes it. Throughout Israel, villagers would gather in the nearest of 24 regional centres. There, overnight, they would sleep in the open air. The next morning, the leader would summon the people with words from the book of Jeremiah (31:5): “Arise and let us go up to Zion, to the House of the Lord our God.” Continue reading KI TAVÔ

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KI TETSÊ

August 23, 2018 Daniel Pels

Social Capital & Fallen Donkeys

Many years ago, Elaine and I were being driven to the Catskills, a long-time favourite summer getaway for Jews in New York, and our driver told us the following story: one friday afternoon, he was making his way to join his family in the Catskills for Shabbat when he saw a man wearing a yarmulke, bending over his car at the side of the road. One of the tires was flat, and he was about to change the wheel. Continue reading KI TETSÊ

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SHOFETIM

August 16, 2018 Daniel Pels

To Lead is to Serve

Our parsha talks about monarchy: “When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “I will set a king over me, like all the surrounding nations,” set over you a king whom the Lord your God chooses” (Deut. 17:14-15). So it should be relatively easy to answer the question: From a Jewish perspective, is having a king a good thing or a bad thing? It turns out, however, to be almost unanswerable. Continue reading SHOFETIM

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REÊ

August 7, 2018 Daniel Pels

On Not Being a Victim

Making a series of programmes for the BBC on morality in the twenty-first century, I felt I had to travel to Toronto have a conversation with a man I had not met before, Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. Recently he has recently become an iconic intellectual for millions of young people, as well as a figure of caricature and abuse by others who should know better.[1] Continue reading REÊ

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